A/68/956

United Nations

General Assembly

Distr.: General
28 July 2014
English
Original: Chinese

Sixty-eighth session
Agenda item 76 (a)
Oceans and the law of the sea

Letter dated 24 July 2014 from the Permanent Representative of

China to the United Nations addressed to the Secretary-General
Upon instruction from my Government, I have the honour to transmit herewith
to you Chinas position paper regarding the two letters and their annexes ( A/68/942,
A/68/943) dated 3 July 2014 from the Permanent Representative of Viet Nam to the
United Nations, addressed to the Secretary-General (see annex).
I should be grateful if you would have the present letter and its annex
circulated as a document of the sixty-eighth session of the General Assembly, under
agenda item 76 (a).
(Signed) Liu Jieyi
Ambassador
Permanent Representative

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Annex to the letter dated 24 July 2014 from the Permanent

Representative of China to the United Nations addressed
to the Secretary-General
Position Paper
China reiterates its position stated in the document annexed to Note
(CML/26/2014) to Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon of the United Nations from
Ambassador Wang Min, acting Permanent Representative of the People s Republic
of China to the United Nations on 9 June 2014, and stresses the following:
1.
The Xisha Islands are Chinas inherent territory, a fact over which there
is no dispute. China stands firmly against and by no means accepts the so -called
Xisha disputes that Viet Nam attempts to fabricate.
2.
China was the first to discover, exploit, develop and exercise jurisdiction
over the Xisha Islands. That the Xisha Islands remained terra nullius until the 17th
century, as asserted by Viet Nam, is absolutely incorrect. The Chinese Government,
as early as the Northern Song Dynasty (960-1126 AD), had established jurisdiction
over the Xisha Islands.
3.
Well into its colonial rule in Viet Nam, which started in the late
nineteenth century, France remained recognizant of China s sovereignty over the
Xisha Islands. The then French Premier and Foreign Minister Aristide Briand
admitted on 22 August 1921 the impossibility in which we currently find ourselves
to claim these islands as the Chinese Government has since 1909 exercised its rights
to their ownership.
4.
In accordance with the Cairo Declaration, the Potsdam Proclamation and
the Japanese Instrument of Surrender issued during World War II, the Xisha Islands,
which had been occupied by Japan in 1939, were returned to China in the legal
sense. The Chinese Government sent senior officials aboard naval vessels to the
Xisha Islands in November 1946 to hold a ceremony to receive the islands. A stone
tablet was erected to commemorate the handover and troops were subsequently
stationed there. The Xisha Islands were thus returned to t he jurisdiction of the
Chinese Government.
5.
The note sent on 14 September 1958 by Vietnamese Premier Pham Van
Dong to Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai recognized and supported the Declaration of
the Government of the Peoples Republic of China on Chinas Territorial Sea
released on 4 September 1958. It goes without saying that such recognition and
support apply to the section of the Declaration referring to ... all territories of the
Peoples Republic of China, including ... the Xisha Islands ... and all other islands
belonging to China. Viet Nam cannot deny the fact that this note recognized
Chinas ownership of the Xisha Islands.
6.
In January 1974, China exercised the right of self-defence enshrined in
the Charter of the United Nations by driving the invading army of the Saigon
authority of South Vietnam from Shanhu Island and Ganquan Island of the Xisha
Islands.
7.
China has repeatedly stated its firm opposition to Viet Nams illegal and
forceful disruption of the drilling activities of China s oil rig located 17 nautical
miles off the baseline of the territorial waters of the Xisha Islands.

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